


Gasoline

by litra



Category: Gasoline - The Silent Comedy (Song)
Genre: Books, Fire, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Magical Realism, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Apocalypse, Songfic, Taxes, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 13:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10991883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litra
Summary: “Doesn’t matter, you’re all dead.” The stranger spat more blood onto the dirt and pushed himself to kneeling. There was a bruise on the side of his face I could see, and at a closer look Franky’s knuckles weren’t the only bloody ones.Ella tugged at my sleeve and I realized that she’d gotten ahead of me, while I’d taken things in. Her gate was still slow, but it was unhindered, unconcerned with what she was walking into. I shook my head once, and then stepped up beside her, letting her take my arm again.“You shut up. Shut the hell up.” Franky wheeled on the stranger, trying to loom over him from ten feet away.“You think I like it?” the stranger bit out. “The whole world’s gone to hell, We’re all just fighting for the scraps."Franky went for him for what had to be the second time; fist up like he was going to drive it, and the man’s skull, into the dirt. Martin got in his way, talking low. Franky didn’t stop though, until Ella called attention to us.“What’s all this now? If someone’s dying I want to know about it.” Her voice rang out, cracked and dry but still stronger than any man there on the street. There was a light in her eyes, and her shoulders had straightened.





	Gasoline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malkontent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malkontent/gifts).



> Inspired by Gasoline by The Silent Comedy  
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pet-frXJtAs>

I didn’t know how long Ella’d been sitting there at the end of the concrete pier, but I’d have hazarded a guess it was a while. She was all bundled up, shawls and beach blankets, with a wide brimmed hat flopping over the back of the chair. 

Not many people dared to go that close to the water. They said the salt that mixed with the sand stung. The oil splashed rainbows might be nice to look at but they made the rocks slimy and there was no reason to tolerate the smell when the wind wasn’t in the wrong direction anyway. They didn’t talk about the way the whispering grasses sometimes sounded like laughter, or the way sometimes the water would move as if there was something just under the surface. 

I shivered, glanced at the sky. The first few steps were easy, but the pier was fifty feet long. No one knew how to swim anymore. By the time I could put a hand on her chair, my fingers curled around it white knuckled.

“Time to go home.”

“Already?” Her voice had always been on the dreamy side, but now it had barely any air to it. If there had been any other sound I might not have heard it at all.

“Supper.”

She lifted a hand, silently asking for help. The bones of her wrist, jutted against the skin. She’d probably skipped lunch again. I kept telling her she needed to eat, but half the time tea and broth was all she could manage.

Today was a good day, she could stand on her own, which explained how she’d wandered all the way out here. The wind plucked at her hat and she tugged it down over her brown curls. Of course determination normally made up for strength on the bad days.

“How’s the shop?”

I humm, buying time, while I put my thoughts in order

All these years and that word, shop, still doesn’t fit in my head, but then, neither does office or station. Others call it the Hall, but others only show up when they need something. Sitting around the Hall all day makes it sound to grand. That’s what she’d always said, and I hadn’t made much of an effort against being won over.

“Martin came to see me.” I finally admitted as we stepped back onto terra firma.

“Oh did he. I bet that was a joy.”

“Not his fault that the council can’t make up it’s damn mind.”

“That’s what it’s there for,” she agreed lightly, “if they ever did make up their minds they wouldn’t be needed anymore. They’d have to go home and actually face the problems they keep circling. So was it the fields or the pests this time?”

“It was…” I let out a slow ragged breath. “You know Sally’s cow?”

“Did the calf come early?”

“Yeah, and apparently it was a nightmare.”

“Did they lose the animal?”

I rolled a shoulder, “it’s the calf he was worried about. I didn’t see it, but from what he said. It practically had a second head.” I paused both to push back the images and to help her over the last bit of scrub and up onto the dirt path. The lake wasn’t far from town, but we had to go slow. She leaned on my arm, and I kept to the pace she needed even when it was nearly a standstill.

“They wanted an explanation. Some reason to keep people calm. Went through two full shelves trying to figure it out.” I went on after a while.

“Sounds gruesome, who’d want to write about something like that, much less read it?”

“Well, I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.” As the archivist, it was quite literally my job. I advised the council, made careful notes on the goings on, and answered the various random questions people had to the best of my ability.

“So did you find them one?”

“An explanation? Sometimes things just go wrong, of course that’s not what Martin wanted to hear.”

She let her head fall back and laughed. It sounded like a bird, a crow maybe, crowing and mocking the world. “Should have sent them to me.”

I glanced at her smile, then away again.  Even knowing her as well as I did it sent a shiver up my spine. In years past I would already be planning ways to stop her sneaking out after dark and doing whatever it was she had in her head, angry farmers with guns not being able to deter  her. She was just as capable in her craft now, but the wasting kept her safely in bed after dark.

“Maybe Sally’ll come visit.”

She hummed disapprovingly, “only if her bridge club doesn’t talk her her out of it. That woman has no steel in her spine.”

It was true. I’d never gotten along with any of the women who played bridge, but it wasn’t a secret that they were the center of the town’s gossip.

When I was younger I never understood the whispers about Ella. She knew why the stars moved the way they did. She could whistle into the wind and tell you which birds whistled back. She could speak in the strange language of the people who sometimes came through on the train. She sang to the bees until they gave up their honey, and walk into the dark on moonless nights. She was only three years older than I was, but she was a world away. I was in awe of her, in love with the idea of her.

When the choice of Archivist had come up after old Henry died, I’d thought the choice was obvious. Even then she’d been able to look into someone and see their soul. Say what they needed to hear. Even then the council didn’t trust her. What a person needed to hear and wanted to hear were often very different things. 

With a smile she’d offered up the keys to the shop, with it’s meager library and old teatering spire. She made it seem like a personal gift my goddess. She’d thought it was funny back then.

Now her mood was like the wasting, there were good days and bad days. It gave the gossips all the more to talk about.

The Rory’s barn came into view, beyond the patch of Juniper trees. You could still see the stain on the graying wood where Lewis had put his shotgun in his mouth and blown his brains all over the wall. The red was faded to brown now. The dribbles had created bars down from the fist sized hole in the wood. After that Abigail had packed up and went off to live with a cousin in some place no one had ever heard of. No one had lived there since. Most people avoided it out of some kind of morbid respect. But disrespectful or not it was still the halfway point and I lowered Ella down onto the grass so she could get her breath back.

“What about the Fletchers? They still planning on leaving?” She mercifully changed the subject.

Ella had been friends with Marie Fletcher, but they hadn’t spoken since the family had declared the intention to leave.

“On the next train,” I confirmed.

The train had stopped coming two weeks ago. People said it was just a problem with the tracks and they’d get it sorted any time, but it was like the lake, and the fields, and now the calf. People said one thing, but everyone was thinking something else.

“How they got it into their heads that somewhere else will be better.” Her voice had gone back to that soft rasp, and she pulled her shawl closer around her, looking out down the road.

“Every town has it’s troubles.” It was a well worn topic and the words came out without much thought. Likewise, her answer was by wrote.

“Only because they won't let me fix it.”

“The council has their reasons.” Unethical they’d called it last time, at least to her face.  Someone listening at the meeting room door would have heard the words, unholy, abomination, and depraved. I didn’t agree not quite, even if I couldn’t say so. I didn’t have any better explanation and it wasn’t like the resulting argument would change anyone’s mind.

I took a slow breath. I could have continued with the script. I had a whole afternoon of research on why things looked worse then they are. I could play devil’s advocate, or brush it off, or change the subject. Instead I didn’t say anything at all.

The stain on the wall and the blank dark hole stared down at me as I pushed myself up, and offered her a hand. She looked up at me for a long minute before letting me help her up. 

  
  


The walk was silent until we reached the edge of town. The voices echoed out towards us through drained of emphasis by the dry air. 

“You’re drunk, just go home.”

“Fuck you. It isn’t any of your business.”

“Just go home Franky.”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you think I’m fucking wrong.”

We came around the side of Pop’s garage and the scene was set out before us. Franky Green shoving a finger in the face of Martin King. Franky’s friends doing nothing to hold him back while the local bar matron Ms. Glass stood at the head of her patrons with her fists on her hips. The sunset cast a red light over all of them, doing nothing to hide the blood on Franky’s knuckles or the splatters on the ground. The man on the ground was a stranger but he had a white shield sewn into the shoulder of an old blue canvas jacket. Once upon a time that would have made him a trained doctor. Likely as not it was stolen though.

“I’m not saying anything.” Martin shook his head, palm out.

“Doesn’t matter, you’re all dead.” The stranger spat more blood onto the dirt and pushed himself to kneeling. There was a bruise on the side of his face I could see, and at a closer look Franky’s knuckles weren’t the only bloody ones.

Ella tugged at my sleeve and I realised that she’d gotten ahead of me, while I’d taken things in. Her gate was still slow, but it was unhindered, unconcerned with what she was walking into. I shook my head once, and then stepped up beside her, letting her take my arm again.

“You shut up. Shut the hell up.” Franky wheeled on the stranger, trying to loom over him from ten feet away.

“You think I like it?” the stranger bit out. “The whole world’s gone to hell, We’re all just fighting for the scraps.”

Franky went for him for what had to be the second time; fist up like he was going to drive it, and the man’s skull, into the dirt. Martin got in his way, talking low. Franky didn’t stop though, until Ella called attention to us.

“What’s all this now? If someone’s dying I want to know about it.” Her voice rang out, cracked and dry but still stronger than any man there on the street. There was a light in her eyes, and her shoulders had straightened. She was taller than I was, though even I tended to forget it outside of times like these. 

They hesitated. Glanced up and away again, not meeting her eye. I felt like a prop, just a cane for her. It’d been awhile since I’d seen her open up like that. It was a sharp reminder of why the old folk were wary of her. Whispers started up in the crowd behind Ms. Glass, not least because by all rights Ella should have been the one to die, weeks and months ago, with the wasting. Another oddity to add to the rumor mill.

The stranger didn’t seem to notice. 

He got to his feet and slapped at the dirt that’d come with him. “I’ve seen it before. Three towns already. Why did you think they shut down the trains. Not enough resources, not enough people, time to batton down the hatches and trim the fat.”

Ella put her free hand on her hip and gave him the look of a mother who knew her child was lying. “Young man, you don’t know me so I’m going to ask you again, and this time I expect you to give me a straightforward answer. Why is there a fight out in the middle of the street, on this perfectly reasonable evening?”

Franky muttered something unflattering under his breath, but he wouldn’t meet her eye. And somehow he was the most diplomatic of the lot.

The stranger scoffed and sneered. “The world is ending, but I don’t suppose you care, seeing as you’re half gone already.”

He kept going but Martin broke over him. “Why don’t you head on home, I’ve got this handled.” he didn’t outright say it was none of her business, but he might as well have. Martin had some measure of respect for me, and I for him, but that respect did not extend to Ella, and the whole town knew it.

“Martin,” she released my arm and took a few steps forward. “I heard there was some trouble with the calf.”

Martin glared at me. The whole town was talking about it, but I was the one who had told her so it fell on my shoulders.

“Go home.” Martin said again.

“No I don’t think I will,” she said. I deliberately kept my shoulders from slumping. Why couldn’t she have, for once, left well enough alone?

Martin clenched his jaw. Franky’s friends had picked up the muttering. The stranger let out a bark of mirthless laughter. It got Ella’s attention back on him.

“I don’t know you. This place and these people are no concern of yours. Get to your business or get out.” She waved a hand down the street.

He tossed his head back and mocked her with a laugh. “You wouldn’t say that if you actually knew my business. The minute I leave, you get scratched off the map.”

I tensed. He had to be lying, despite the shield on his jacket. 

Not many of those gathered would realize the implications, but my position meant I was all too aware of them. Not being recognised by the distant sudo-government that the Coalition had pulled together, meant no one in our registry would be seen as citizens. The train would stop for good, and with it the mail and news from anyone more than a few dozen miles away. There wouldn’t be any taxes, but there wouldn’t be any support either. The cisterns were on their last legs. The influx of rotational crops that we used to get every four years would vanish. We’d be helpless against anyone with a gun and the will to harm, without even the illusion of retribution. 

It may not have looked too different on the outset. Certainly the government hadn’t done anything to ingratiate itself in a dog's age. Except I knew how much worse it could get.

“What is your name?” Ella asked the stranger.

“I’m Grant Vasiliev MDC Recognised by the Core and House to assess the townships from Williamsburg to the mouth of the White River.”

I cursed under my breath. The stranger would have to prove what he claimed before the council, but announcing it like that in front of half the town would win him half the fight. Moreover Ella wasn’t backing down and anyone with a grudge, anyone who secretly feared her, would back him out of spite.

“Grant Vasiliev,” she said his name with deliberation. “Do not overstep. This is my home and I will deal harshly with anyone who would harm it. This will be your only warning.”

She could have said more, and I had no doubt that he would answer every threat in kind. The sun had dipped below the horizon though, and I couldn’t let this go on into the night. Not all of us had Ella’s fearlessness when it came to what was out there.

I clapped my hands twice, the sound sharp in the tense air. “I’m sure the council will be wanting to verify your credentials Mr. Vasiliev. In the morning. But seeing as the day’s now truly done, I think this can be tabled in favor of a hearty meal and a decent rest.”

The sun was dieing on the horizon. I didn’t say how the dark was dangerous. How we were three days from the new moon. How argument or not we were still on the same side in that fight. 

Martin nodded to me, thanks in his features. Franky and his lot had already been slinking away. Now they turned their backs with a few rude gestures to indicate they wouldn’t forget what happened.  Ms. Glass took care of the rest, hustling her serving girl back to work and reminding a few of the stranglers about tabs.  

The stranger hadn’t moved, his eyes running over me speculatively. I wasn’t prepared to tell him my name and all the reasons people listened when I stepped in, mostly because by my eye he was too green to really get it. 

Ella seemed unaffected but more willing. We both knew she could wait me out if she needed. She held up a hand, allowing me to help her forward.

“He’ll be trouble.” She murmured once we’d turned the corner and he was safely out of earshot.

I nodded though I wasn’t sure we were thinking about the same kind of trouble. Keeping those two apart for the next few days would be hard enough, never mind whatever fires the friction caused.

But that was a problem for the morning.

 

<><><>

 

I flinched at the knock on the Shop door only ten minutes after I’d poured my first cup of tea. Ella wasn’t having a good morning so I’d been futilely hoping for some quiet. Since I lived in the back of the building, I was never really off the clock, but I tried to make an effort to be available during certain hours and most times that was respected. Not that I was all that surprised. By now the whole town would know about the stranger, and the council would be all a bluster.

I let out a slow breath, forced the tension from my shoulders and opened the door. It was him of course, the stranger, Grant Vasiliev, still wearing that jacket with the shield on the shoulder.

“Can I help you?” I didn’t turn it into a sneer, but I also didn’t step aside or open the door far enough for him to get any ideas.

“I’m told you’re the one who can provide me with records.” He didn’t make it a question.

For his meeting with the council no doubt. We were too far out to have been bothered with a census or anything so formal for decades. I had equivalent records, births and deaths, who owned land and livestock, but it was spread out over half a dozen journals, and that assumed he was looking for something that mundane.

“Can I ask what you’re looking for, maybe narrow down the search a bit?” I wanted to just shut the door in his face, but everything in the Shop was a matter of public record, both by law and custom. Being that blunt would be a death sentence.

His eyes narrowed. “Listen here…” He paused seemingly waiting for a name. I didn’t offer one. Eventually he went on. “I am meeting with your council this afternoon. That meeting will be your town’s one chance to make a good impression, something which you have so far failed at spectacularly.”

Ella was right, the guy was really bad at actually answering a question straight out.

I blinked slowly, “all I asked was what you were looking for.”

“None of your business,” his voice was tight, and his eyes were narrowed looking down his nose.

I was the archivist. It was exactly my business, especially since as far as I knew he was going to use the information to ruin my town.

He drew himself up, straightened his jacket and got a look in his eyes that could only mean bad things. When he opened his mouth to speak I pushed the door open and stepped aside. It wasn’t an actual invitation but it surprised him enough that it took the wind from his sails. It almost made up for how wrong it felt to have a stranger invading my domain.

He stumbled over the threshold, taking in the old dining table that served as my desk. The shelves of books stuck out at intervals just wide enough apart for a person to fit between. They were made of raw wood planks hammered together with pegs as often as nails and warped in places where the boards hadn’t been dried properly. The door back to my personal rooms was at the far end of the room. Still close enough that I’d hear if Ella needed help. The front windows were the only source of light since I refused the smoky lamps that might have sparked a fire. 

I’d always prided myself on the state of our library given our size, but to someone from the government, someone who’d had actual schooling not just what I could guide the younger kids though in the off seasons, it had to be far from impressive. And he would have been right. It wasn’t our single room library that was impressive. It was the books. 

The tomes I lovingly took care of were a mix of fiction and nonfiction. I maintained the City records of course, but mixed in were diarys, half a dozen precious textbooks from before, that I was working to duplicate. Publications with glossy covers and illustrations that were faded but still clearly in color. Text so tight and precise that no human hand could mimic it. I did my best to replicate repair the damage time was slowly dealing out. Rebinding cracked spines with wood and cloth, adding what i could to the records in a neat print on paper I’d muddled my way through making.

I picked up my tea, and used it to center my thoughts. “The library is of course open to everyone.” I wanted to tell him to be careful. To treat by books with respect. I had a whole speech when the younger kids came for lessons, about how they should treat the books like eggs. I had a feeling if I gave him that lecture he’d tear them apart on purpose. 

“Not all the books have titles though so if I could help you find something.”

His eyes narrowed again, “no.”

I forced myself to nod as if that was perfectly reasonable. 

With a tight spin he turned on the bookcase and began scanning the tomes. Only one in five even had a title, so I expected it to take him a while. I leaned back against the edge of the table and breathed in the steam from my tea, watching his every move.

“Let me know if you have any questions.”

It took him nearly fifteen minutes to break. During that time he yanked books off the shelves, scanned them too fast to glean any real information, and shoved them back in the wrong places. I had patience to spare, but even I was on edge by the time he turned and jabbed a finger at me.

“What kind of god forsaken filing system is this?”

“Chronological mostly,” as in the things I worked on most recently were at the front.  There was no point in using anything like an official library system when there would be so many gaps on the shelves. I was perversely pleased to see his annoyance at my non-answer. Just because he’d decided to come storming into my business, didn’t mean I had to be nice about it. I put down my tea and stepped past him, naming books as I tapped the spines.

“Harvest records, Council meeting records, collected articles from before the collapse” I let my hand rest on top of the last. “I’m willing to help you since it seems like that will help my home, but I don’t like your bias.”

He’d stepped forward eyes on the book rather than me, but stopped again at my words. “Excuse me?”

“That friend of mine you got into a fight with has a saying. Everyone has a bias, you just have to hope it’s in your favor. Now you came out here, and I don’t know how much of your story I want to believe but assuming even half of what you said isn’t exaggeration, you could do us a lot of good or a lot of harm. Seems to me you’re determined to make it latter. Then again, what do I know? I’m just another local hic.”

There was a part of me really hoping he’d somehow see the error of his ways, even if it was only based in guilt or a desire to better hide his intentions. Instead he hammered on a smile and spoke through his teeth, frustration showing in the tension of his jaw, they way he clenched and unclenched his hands.

“You think I want to be here? Months away from my family, if I even survive the disease and the beasts and everything else your backwater can throw at me? You’re just an illiterate, country Jay who couldn’t see the bigger picture if your face was shoved into it.” He took a breath and the anger that had been simmering the whole conversation was focused to a single burning point. “I’m not here to ruin you. It’s not my choice, and if it wasn’t me then it’d be someone else. Frankly, you’re just check box on my list. Maybe there’s something here, something you can actually contribute to the Atheneum. Maybe you have the black box hidden away in your back room. Please enlighten me. I’d love to have something positive for my reports for once, but you and your lot are so mistrusting you wouldn’t climb in a boat to keep from drowning.”

I drew in a breath, pushing back images of the lake.  He was right, I didn’t get it. I still didn’t understand why he was here or what whoever sent him really wanted. I wanted to get angry and maybe if I’d been a few years younger I would have. As it was all I could see was a young buck who still thought he could save the world if people just got out of his way. The constant crick in my neck was making itself known and there was a low pounding in my temples that was threatening to become a proper migraine. At least my eyes were still good. 

Mostly I felt worn down.

“Kid,” I made sure to meet his eyes, “What are you looking for?”

His anger held on for a moment. His nostrils flared as his face reddened, then he turned, away, looking at the shelves, the door, the front windows and the town beyond. The tension was still there in the line of his shoulders but his voice was forcefully steady.

“Why are you alive?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your lake. It’s poison. The last surveys are all clear. I went down there this morning and you can see it.” I nodded. It wasn’t like I was unaware. “A whole refinery dumped into the groundwater, and eighty years later it’s still soup, but you’re still here.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

He rolled his eyes and lifted his hands dramatically, “Obviously. Half the world is still finding the bones from the war and the other half is poisoned by ash and oil, but here you are out on the edge and still,” he waved at everything around us. I took a step back, from the barely leashed energy rolling off him. “Printed books. I saw a tractor on the way into town an actual working tractor. You want to know what started that fight yesterday? All those people worried about the calf, and I was surprised it was the first one. You shouldn’t be able to grow anything. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be alive, so why are you? What’s your secret? And why on earth haven’t you shared it?”

My hip hit the corner of the table. He’d backed me across the room with his fervor, and all I could do was shake my head.

I knew it was bad. Hell if anyone in town knew, it was me. The eruptions, and boiling of the bering sea. The desperation that had sparked the eastern war. Disease, the borders closing, the collapse of industry. Ten years in which everything that could go wrong, had. Twenty more for hope to fail and the last of the old ways to fall apart. Then the fifty years I’d lived, one day at a time.

Survive? Maybe we had, but not any better than anyone else, or at least that’s what I’d always thought.

His eyes danced back and forth between mine. I don’t know what he saw but disdain crept over his features as he stepped back.

I wanted to tell him we were just lucky. We weren’t important or central enough to bother with. Except, was he right? My voice stuck in my throat and the arguments fell flat even in my own head. Ella’s face, young and alluring swam behind my eyes asking me to question things. Asking if I was sure. Snippets of conversation that, taken out of context, would have been more than enough to trigger those kind of thoughts. 

Mr. Vasiliev spent the next three hours taking notes, on books that I’d read a dozen times over. I stepped out only once, and only as far as the front steps, to speak to Ms. Glass as she ran the morning errands. I tried to keep an eye on him, but mostly I was lost in my own head. The council meeting came all too quickly.

 

<><><>

 

The council met in the large open room over Ms. Glass’s place. There were three of the blocky wooden tables that were used downstairs set up so the five council members could sit in a semicircle, with a single straight backed chair in the center. I had a chair against the wall and a lap desk, to clearly indicate my lack of status in the proceedings. 

Martin hovered by the door, finishing a sandwich. He nodded to me, and then slowly to Mr. Vasiliev.

Martin wasn’t actually a member of the council. He was there because they had decided they needed a report on the situation surrounding the calf, and of course that came first because god forbid they rearrange their schedule for anything as small as the future of our home. Mr. Vasiliev sat to one side while I kept my head down and took notes.

It wasn’t a very good showing. The council talked in circles as always, asking questions and then doubling back on themselves. Martin tried to answer their questions, but half the time they didn’t seem to listen to the answers. At one point I was called on to provide what I had researched, which only turned the discussion to whether the research could be trusted.

Eventually they decided that the cow should be isolated and no one who had not already had contact with it should do so. The calf had been born dead and had already been burned. With all the fear surrounding the thing, and the fact that Martin and Sally didn’t have any other cattle that would have been the outcome in any case. 

My attention perked back up when they called Mr. Vasiliev forward. He had a sheaf of papers which he unwrapped from a wax packet, unfolding them with care. He held them up and read aloud. It was the expected formal language for about five minutes before he got to the point.

“Therefore all outer territories must declare and reaffirm their loyalties. Every town is required to deliver taxation in the form of 50% of the indicated livestock as reported in the indicated survey: Spring LM-219, or the equivalent in the form of wheat, barley or corn. Townships will be taxed as a collective. Should the townships be unwilling or unable to meet the designated amount, a 30% payment will be accepted as the price to secede from the Coalition.”

He went on. A bit about allowing access to be sure we weren’t hiding anything, proper procedure for caring for the livestock until they could be delivered. It was all so far outside the range of reason that I had stopped taking notes and was staring with wide eyes.

When Mr. Vasiliev finished, he presented the document, and all the seals stamped on it, to the council. They crowded around, back to ignoring him now that he wasn’t immediately engaging. He took it as the que it was to sit back down. He didn’t look happy at least, but I couldn’t read any more than that. He just stared at a point behind the council head’s shoulder. Martian caught my eye and we exchanged a worried look before he slipped out. 

It would all get out soon enough. In this case I didn’t mind him spilling the beans to anyone who was downstairs. 30% just to be left alone. Or what? A declaration of war? One town against the remnants of a world power. It was a joke.

<><><>

  
  


When I came down the stairs the bar was packed and yet silent. Ms Glass stood by the kitchen door, twisting a dish towel between her hands. Martin stood between her and the old men who were lined up on the stools.

They knew, now they were just waiting for my confirmation. 

The stairs creaked behind me, so I descended the last step and cleared the doorway for the others. The council took their time in leaving, nodding to friends, giving significant looks, and generally giving the rumor mill something to chew on. None of them actually wanted to stay of course that would mean explaining themselves. Which left me as the messenger.

I took a surreptitious look around the room. I was good at talking to people, but making speeches and declarations was a different game altogether.

Eyes tried to meet mine. I focused on anything else. Mable gently rocking her new baby over by where the bridge club sat at the front table. The yellow curtains trying to escape through the open window. The child’s depiction of a pony in the corner of the chalkboard menu behind the bar. My eyes found the dart board and the ageing sports paraphernalia on the walls rather than Franky and his gang leaning against the east wall. Both the dart board and the paraphernalia were useless now. The last of the darts lost seven or eight years ago, and all the teams long disbanded. No one left alive remembered the Springfield Thunderers or what the framed medal, ribbon still bright under the glass, was for. There were plenty of drunken arguments about if the signature said Sammy Green or Sunny Crane, though, and the team colors still gave the patrons a greenish tint. 

I’d never given them a thought before. They’d always been there. Relics from before the end of the world. It wasn’t as though anyone had gone out of their way to preserve them like I had the books. Maybe Mr. Vasiliev had a point. The colors should have faded more. The paint should have peeled. There should be water stains or mold but there weren’t even cobwebs in the corners, and no matter how keen Ms. Glass was to keep the place up, her girls would have let it slip.

The door opened drawing my attention along with everyone else's. It was Ella of course. Even now, she always knew when something was up. She hadn’t been doing so well that morning, and it showed. Her eyes were clear but her hands were shaking on the handle of the cane. She hated that cane, wouldn’t touch it on a good day. 

The men lined up at the bar shifted without being asked, her favorite spot opening up. Ms Glass glanced at me but didn’t say anything as she got down a green bottle and poured a shot. Ella hadn’t paid for a drink since the complication with Ms. Glass’s second child. Like me Ms. Glass was too central to things to give an opinion of her own, but I could tell she wouldn’t go against us.

When Ella had her drink and settled her attention on me the eyes of the room went with it. I sucked in a slow breath through my teeth. Nothing for it.

“The Coalition’s forcing us out.” 

Voices bubbled up, grumblings and snorts and growls. I hadn’t expected a positive response so I just let  the sound wash over me and settled back on my heels. 

“What do they want?” Ella’s voice rasped over the words, cutting off the growing arguments.

“To bleed us.” I held up a hand before they could get going again. “Fifty percent for their protection. Thirty to leave us alone, or they come and take it all.” Better to set that out there straight, here at the start.

At least three people cursed, and the grumbling started up again. Ella tapped a finger on the rim of her shot. Eventually someone thought to ask the only real question.

“What’d they decide?”

“Thirty percent!” I don’t see who said it but it sounded like a curse. Others pick up the theme, and that seems to be the consensus. We were too close to the line already. Half would kill us. The council had to have decided to leave. It wasn’t like the Coalition did all that much for us, nothing worth the arm and a leg they were asking for. We’d never survive a war, but thirty percent might leave us enough to scrape by.

I shook my head. “The numbers don’t match up.”

Ella had her eyes on me as soon as I spoke. It took a few beets for the rest of the room to quiet down again. It was worse than they knew. I handed the meeting notes over to Ms. Glass. The ultimatum was right there at the top.

“Second page, about halfway down.” I said. It was a coward's way out. 

She sucked in a breath when she saw it, “Those Bastards.” From there it spread from hand to hand. Thirty percent, plus growth, plus interest, plus delivery fees and handling and feed for the animals and a dozen other things tacked on for good measure.

I leaned back against the wall as the crowd rehashed the same debate that had happened upstairs. The council hadn’t come up with an answer, and I doubted the crowd would find one now. No one would ask my opinion on the subject.

“Why now? What do they really want?” 

I looked up but Ella’s eyes weren’t on me. She were watching Mr. Vasiliev where he was hovering on the last stair. Others took up the line of questioning. A few men even stepped forward, fists raised, fingers accusing. 

My first instinct was to stop them. But why? A fight here wouldn’t change what the council decided or how the Coalition reacted. If they killed him, would it really make things so much worse? 

“Does it matter? They could be building a spaceship, but none of you would see the stars.”

“It matters if they’re going to kill us to do it.” Ella’s voice scratched over her words like dry branches. 

“Then give me something. Tell me how you’re still alive. Give me something to bargain with and I’ll get them to leave you alone.”

The crowd’s rumblings were growing louder. I hated it. I was just as angry as any of them. I knew more about what was actually going on. I should have been allowed to scream and punch the walls and break things, but here I was stuck in the middle. 

Someone muttered about the calf. Martin stepped forward, hands in fists. The bridge club made a few disparaging comments about character. 

Ella slipped off her stool. “You want a solution? You want a magic cure for a broken world?” Around her the air wavered yellow and green. The room was too hot, the emotions bleeding over into something more tangible. I shouldn’t have been able to hear her over the rising arguments, but somehow her words overrode everything else. “You want to invite an abomination to your table, and I am so tempted to agree. You have no idea how long I’ve argued that point. No. Not for them, not for you. And damn you for asking.”

Glass shattered, and I ducked instinctively. When I looked up, the world had broken.

Mr. Vasiliev shouted. I staggered back from a punch to the shoulder. My back hit a wall. A woman screamed. Ms. Glass was shouting. One of the tables was flipped over.  Beer spilled across the bar. Fabric tore. The curtains from the front window billowed briefly before being pulled down in a tangle. Someone threw a chair through the glass.

This was wrong. Who were we supposed to be fighting? A shoe hit the wall next to my head and I flinched again, bringing up my arms. I had to get out of there. Had to get Ella out of there.

Ella.

She was standing there at the end of the bar, one hand flat on the surface, the other gripping her cane. Her eyes were bright, practically glowing, but the rest of her was pale as milk. Silent now in the center of the storm. A single drop of red slid like a tear down her cheek.

I had to get us out of this.

I lunged forward, stumbling. Someone hit my shoulder. I landed on one knee, slapped the ground. Pushed myself up. There she was. I caught Ella’s hand and the cane fell away. She gasped twisting to look up at me, a question on her lips. I couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear myself think. She blinked, reached up and caught blood on her fingertips.

A lamp torn was from the wall and fire blossomed. The door. Had to get out. The night was dark outside the window, and I didn’t know when that had happened but it had to be better than being trampled or burned to death.

The next moments stretched into eons. I pulled Ella close, arm around her waist, half carrying her when she stumbled. The strength that had laid out her law was gone now. I curled around her. Took a strike to the arm meant for someone else. Somehow I got us through.

The night air still smelled like ash and alcohol but I had room to stagger away. I wasn’t the only one who’d sought escape. For a minute I thought everyone would come to their senses, the chill night air enough to break the spell, but no. People I’d known all my life became strangers. They tossed stones at their neighbors. Took up shards of glass against former friends. 

The moon was red on the horizon, as I took Ella and ran. 

 

<><><>

 

The door to the shop was comfortingly solid against my back. The room was too dark to see, but I knew it well enough to find the table and lower Ella into the chair. She was shaking. Or maybe I was.

“We’re alright, we’re okay. Everything, fuck.” My voice shook. I couldn’t think. I needed to figure out what to do. The town, everyone was going crazy. How was I supposed to fix this?

“Oh,” Ella breathed out, making it sound halfway between a gasp and a moan. My heart seized in my chest.

“Are you hurt?” There was movement but I couldn’t tell if she was nodding or shaking her head. Not that I would believe her if she said she was fine. You couldn’t cry blood and then just be fine. I patted my pockets for a rag, a handkerchief, something. What I really needed was a lamp, a shot of something strong and a good night’s rest, but somehow I didn’t think any but the first were going to happen. 

I hesitated briefly, debating, then shook my head. I’d moved Ella enough, if she was injured, I didn’t want to make it any worse than it already was.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

She called after me as I ran for my rooms. It was just as dark there, but I knew just where the matches were. It only took a second to pull down my bulky kerosene lamp and light it. Another second to grab the kit I kept for Ella’s bad days, hauling it all back to the front. 

She was standing, leaning on the chair, and staring out the front window. I could still hear the shouts and a flickering orange was starting to touch her skin. I put the lamp on the table, and yes, there were the bandages. There was the cream that normally eased her pain, but what she really needed was the thick tea, if it was as bad as it looked.

“Oh heavens,” Her voice was so sad that I stopped my fumbling and just looked at her. 

“This isn’t your fault.”

“You know it is.” She squinted her eyes against the light as she glanced back at me. I couldn’t tell if her eyes looked any better.

“It’s no one’s fault. Tensions have been running high for a while. Just let me make you some tea. Everything will look better in the morning.” I wasn’t fooling anyone let alone myself. I knew what came next. What I’d been ignoring and dreading since the first time she’d walked down to the lake.

“I pushed too hard.” It started as a whisper to herself but her words grew steadier as she went on. “I know why they hate the idea, but all this time and the cost will only grow.”

“The Coalition can wait.” 

She gave me a look. We both knew that wasn’t who she meant. 

I wanted to tell her to stay. That she didn’t have to carry the weight for all of us. I didn’t know the details, what she’d bet and bargained for our sake. But I couldn’t. Even now I shied away from thinking about it.

She turned from the window. Her hand felt like the paper in my books as she lifted it to my cheek. “Thank you for trying, but my life is no longer in your hands to save.”

“That thing shouldn’t get to have you.”

“There’s no one else. I should have done something a long time ago.” She shook her head, but she was smiling. Her cane was gone, lost somewhere in the scrabble, but she didn’t seem to need it now. Her decision gave her strength, even if that strength no longer impressed itself on others. 

She took a last steadying breath, and opened the door.

How many years had we stood by each other? How long had I supported her as she had supported me? And now? 

I caught the sob in my throat and swallowed it down. The back of my hand cleared my eyes, and I grabbed at the lamp. 

  
  


My steps stopped on the threshold. Ella had made it ten feet out the door before the crowd had surrounded her. They looked like primitive, backlit by the dry thatch that had caught alight all along the street. An old stone savage armed, like in that Frost poem, except there would be no mending of fences tonight. 

Mr. Vasiliev was a bloody heap in the dirt. Franky and Martin stood over him in a parody of the day before, except this time neither was willing, or maybe able, to talk. Others watched like a pack of wild dogs, snarling and lashing out at anything that came too close. Scuffles broke out, screams, somewhere a baby was crying. They looked at Ella like she was a threat.

“Out of my way.” I heard her use that tone before. It should have been a cutting command. The kind of order that sent armies running toward gunfire. For a moment the air turned sharp, the stars stabbed the dark. Then the wind swept up, full of smoke and whatever control she might have had, failed. 

A woman in a torn blue dress fell forward swinging a beam that still glowed with embers.

Ella staggered. 

I lost sight of her as a man grabbed at my jacket, pulling me around. I shoved him away. Stumbled. The lantern was a weight in my hand, oil sloshing in the base. I felt the thud of it’s impact up my arm. Something broke. Pain flared up the back of my arm. I stared for a full two seconds before I could comprehend what had happened. 

The lamp had shattered. My attacker was on the ground, but it was more than that. The oil had splashed across the wall, the door, of my home and joined the blaze. 

My books. My life. I had to stop it. Had to put it out. I reached out, desperate. Water, I needed, something, anything. I clawed at the ground throwing handfuls of earth at the crackling fire. 

Her scream was possibly the only thing that could have made me turn away.

Ella’s head rolled back, blood from a cut over one eye, dripping awkwardly down into her hair, dyeing it red. 

I couldn’t. It was too much. Everything I cared about all at once. I was on my knees, pulling her into my arms, before I realized she wasn’t dead.

“Please, the lake, please.”

It was a direction, a goal, and I seized on it.

Getting out, away from the buildings and the red roaring fire was a blur. I didn’t start to feel the weight of her in my arms, until I was even with the Rory’s barn. The gaping hole in the wall, stared out at me. I told myself the glow from the depths was just an owl, or maybe a raccoon. The movement i kept catching out of the corner of my eye, were just bats.

The moon should have been getting smaller as it rose, but it was still stained red as I left the path in favor of the beach. I stepped up onto the concrete of the pier, still solidly on land, and found I could go no further.

The lake was boiling. It had to be a trick of the wind. The bubbles weren’t big, barely there at all, except for the way they covered the surface.

This was not my place. I loved Ella but her path had split from mine a long time ago. She should have been the one standing there, laughing at the dark. My place was back in town with my books and the ideas written in them.

She stirred in my arms. The thanks I sent up was only half for her sake.

Ella tugged at my arms until I set her on her feet. “Thank you.” she said, “Will you help me with one last thing?”

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want any of what had happened tonight to be real. I nodded anyway.

She reached up, and one by one, unwound her shawls, draping them over my arms until she was left in only a shift.

“I’ll need a light.”

I started to shake my head. The lantern was gone, the remains dropped back in town. Except she was reaching forward. I didn’t remember slipping the matches into my breast pocket but there they were all the same.  

Ella’s chair still sat there at the end of the pier. She headed for it without the fear I harbored, of slipping off the side into the dark water and never seeing light or land again. When I didn’t immediately follow, she ordered me after her with a sharp word.

“Dip those in the water, and spread them out.” She directed after she’d taken her seat.

It took four long slow breaths before I could get to my knees. I didn’t lie to myself about why my hands were shaking. When the wind picked up and nearly tugged the first scarf from my hand, my eyes snapped shut, joints locking up.

“You are my hand in this,” Ella said, “You follow my direction and all your actions are mine. A hand can not disobey the mind that aims it.”

She was taking the choice from me.  I didn’t know if I should be grateful or just angry. I could move though, free of the paralyzing fear, and that was the point.

The first scarf came out of the water dripping and shiny even with only the light of the moon. I laid it out where Ella directed. One by one I placed the wet clothes around her.

“Set them alight, and then go.” Her tone was still giving orders, but this time I couldn’t follow them.

“They won't burn.”

“They will.”

“It’s even worse if they do. I can’t do that to you.”

She met my eyes and smiled. “It’s alright. This is my choice. Please. ”

I tried to find the words to show her how crazy this was, but nothing came out.

“I am alright.”

I couldn’t. I loved her, and more then that, I trusted her, but this?

My hands moved as if on their own, pulling out the small box. I lit a match as if I’d never seen a fire. 

“I am alright,” she said again.

The match fell from my fingers, and I staggered back. The rags shouldn’t have caught, no matter how polluted the water, but they did. 

No, this wasn’t right. Stepping forward, I reached for her. I could still sweep the cloth aside, get her out of there.

“I am alright.” Her words became a littony, a song, a spell.

I couldn’t stop it. She’d made her choice freely, and she knew better than I what the consequences were.

She was half turned in the chair, smiling up at me softly.

Maybe it was better this way. No more whispers, no more bad days, no more pain. 

She closed her eyes, settling back.

I turned away. I didn’t want to see what happened next.

The water sloshed over my shoes as I stepped down onto the sand. A shiver zipped up my spine. The fire and the moon bleaching the surroundings, washing them in red. My shadow stretched out in front of me… until a larger shadow fell over everything.

I closed my eyes and clenched my hands to keep them from trembling. It was just a cloud. There was no reason for the hairs on the back of my neck to be standing on end or the horrible small feeling that had pinned me in place.

It took a long time for the feeling to go away.

The light of the fire had gone out.

I didn’t look back.

 

<><><>

 

“I am alright,” I told the shimmering water. Five years and I still couldn’t believe how blue the lake was. I didn’t pretend to know what Ella had done that night. The ash had been cold by the time I’d dared come back in the the light of day. But whatever it was had a profound effect.

Five years to the day.

“Finally finished that copy of the manual. Not my best work, the diagrams were a pain.” The fire had ruined so many of the books. Copying the remaining had become a priority so that it never happened again. 

“Negotiations are still ongoing. The council has the Coalition all tied up with technicalities. The depth of the wells and how close together they can be. Almost hate to say it, but I’m glad.” It had taken so long to put things to rights after that night. Even with Ella…. But we’d come a long way. Rebuilding, moving forward rather than sitting with our heads in the sand and ignoring the greater world.

I kicked at the sand, sending pebbles skittering for the water’s edge. The sun was still low, grass wet with dew. A sparrow darted over the water’s surface. In a few hours others would come down to the water. The elders were still cautious, but the younger men were relearning the art of fishing and the kids had no hesitation about playing in the shallows. 

“Ms. Glass’s younger girl has eyes like yours. That look you used to get. And she eats up everything I can teach her. I don’t think anyone else has noticed yet.”

In the distance a train whistled. Two a day now, and it was more than I could remember my whole life. 

Five years to the day.

“I miss you.” I shook my head. Even speaking to ghosts I knew that wasn’t what she’d want to hear. “I’m doing just fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I'd never heard this song before and Mal's prompt was very open ended. That being the case I may have let this story run away with me.  
> Hope it entertains.


End file.
